Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  “It’s like your psychic.” He grinned at her.

  At least she didn’t have to worry about somehow celebrating his birthday on such short notice. She cut herself a slice and bit into it. Ahh, ambrosia. It was good cake, true, but the sugary sweetness was a boon to her tired body. Halfway through her piece, she felt mentally aware enough to tackle the books. “Alright, you said you wanted me to quiz you?”

  “Yup. Go through the end of chapter questions, that’ll work.”

  She obliged, starting at the first chapter and working her way through them, often doing them in a semi-random order in case he had tried to memorize the answers in a specific way. This degree wasn’t a case of ‘let’s just graduate.’ Even the basic information of geology would be vital in their field. She wanted to make sure that he knew it and knew it well.

  He did. In the hour of them going back and forth, Cameron missed two questions, and on one of them he half-knew the answer. It was the same chapter Noriko had struggled with, as the author’s definition of terms had been somewhat confusing. “I think it’s just chapter fifteen you really need to review.”

  “Were you confused by it? At one point, I swear he had a logical fallacy in the definitions.”

  Noriko grimaced agreement. “It sure read that way. Lars has a geology degree, right? Maybe he can explain it to us better.”

  “Now there’s a thought.” Cameron cleaned off the last bite of cake with a soft sigh of approval. “We should bring the rest of this into work.”

  “Scrape off the rest of the ‘Happy Birthday’ first.”

  Cameron blinked at her, innocently confused. “Why would I do that?”

  She gave him the same Look she reserved for her brothers when they were up to mischief. “You like causing confusion and panic, don’t you?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  At that point, Noriko started to worry for herself. “Fine, I don’t care.” Pushing herself up, she headed for the bathroom. She was dressed and ready to go except for her hair and putting on a touch of makeup. In the bathroom doorway, she paused and bent half-backwards to look at him. “Are you an only child?”

  “Nope. Why?”

  Huh, really? “Just curious.” He’d come off as the only child. Or maybe there was a large enough age gap between the siblings that he’d been raised like one. It wasn’t in her nature to pry, so she let the question lie there and finished getting ready.

  By the time she came back to the living room, Cameron had washed all of the dishes and put them away, the cake was properly back in the box, and he was listening to something on his e-reader. Noriko blinked in shock. She normally had to bribe or threaten the men in her family to clean up. “Thank you.”

  “What for?” He pulled out an earbud, expression genuinely confused instead of playful for once.

  It was her turn to respond as if the answer were perfectly obvious. “For cleaning up.”

  “You cooked. Of course I clean.”

  “Music to my ears.” She grinned at him. “Alright, let’s go to work. Maybe today we can find some answers.”

  “The perk to this job,” Cameron said, eyes on the twisted metal debris that he was lifting, “is that we get great tans.”

  “Shut up,” Noriko growled in aggravation.

  He twisted his head to look over his shoulder, blinking at her innocently. “Maybe with enough exposure, you’ll adapt and start to tan?”

  “You say one more word and I will kick you off the cliff,” she warned direly. Noriko had put on three coats of sunscreen already on her exposed skin but she still felt like she was burning.

  A grin on his face, he turned around and focused on the work he was doing. Of course, he didn’t leave it alone. “Should I buy you a parasol? You can be like those old-fashioned ladies, shielding yourself from the sun.”

  “Powers,” she growled.

  That got him chuckling. “I do love teasing you. You have the best reactions.”

  She eyed his unprotected backside, thinking dark things to herself. If she took one giant step forward, she would have the reach she needed to plant a boot in his backside. He’d never see it coming.

  “Don’t kill me off, Spidey.”

  Was the man a telepath? How did he know he had just made the endangered species list? “Who says I will?”

  “The paperwork for killing off your partner, even if it looks like an accident, is horrendous. Trust me.”

  Sidetracked by this, she demanded, “How would you know?”

  “Classified.”

  Really, it would just take one giant step forward. Paperwork or not, she was fairly certain it was worth it.

  Perhaps Cameron’s survival skills were better than she gave him credit for. He stopped working for a moment, the piece he was carrying hovering in mid-air, and half-turned toward her. “I’ll buy you birthday cake.”

  Pursing her lips, she glared at him suspiciously. “Chocolate birthday cake.”

  “Deal.” Eyes sparkling with laughter, he turned around again as if his life hadn’t been in jeopardy a moment before and continued on.

  The man had a talent for getting on her last nerve. Their previous times, he had been focused enough on the job that he didn’t think to tease her much. But today was different, as he was obviously bored and taking that boredom out on her. Four hours of cleanup work was likely to blame for that.

  When something the size of a test cell blew up, taking part of the neighboring test cell with it, it created quite a bit of debris. Most of it was black and twisted past recognition. Some of it had been blown into the side of the hill, some of it went onto the desert floor, and unfortunately for them, the rest was strewn up and down the hillside. The very steep, turned-into-a-cliff hillside.

  Rather than use a work crew with cranes to lift it all out, the GF team had chosen to focus on the hillside first. They had divided the area into zones and lifted things out one at a time, moving it to a designated area behind them so that Goudie could take a good look at things and decide if he wanted to keep them or not. If not, then another pair that stood at his elbow lifted everything into hazardous waste disposal dumpsters sitting nearby.

  This would not be a single day’s work. Perhaps a full week would see the worst of the mess cleaned up. It would’ve gone faster if everyone could put things directly into the dumpsters, but it would also be counter-productive. Goudie had to make sure that there wasn’t an incendiary device somewhere in this chaos of charred metal. If he could do that, then half of their mystery was solved, and they could move past the ‘how it happened’ stage and onto ‘why and who.’

  “See another piece,” Cameron announced, edging sideways to get a better look. “Man, it looks almost wedged in there. How’d that happen?”

  Everything else they’d found so far was loose, which was understandable. “Maybe it was hot enough to melt stone and dug itself into the hillside?”

  “Maybe?” he said doubtfully. “Spidey, give me a little more juice. It’s not budging.”

  She obligingly fed him more power even as her heart started to climb into her throat. He was edging far too close to the cliff for her piece of mind. “Cameron…” she said warningly.

  “I’m stopping here,” he promised. “Ground’s unstable any further out.” He gave a grunt of effort, for once looking frustrated instead of bored. “I might need to dig this thing out. Or tag team it.” Still maintaining his grip on it, he called to the neighboring pair, “Lars? Can you gimme a ha—”

  In that split second of inattention, the hunk of metal that had been so stubborn broke free. The weight of it was much heavier than Cameron, and because of his grip on it, it jerked him off his feet. Noriko felt it happen all at once and saw from the startled look on Cameron’s face that he hadn’t been expecting this development at all. His balance was completely thrown off and he was heading head-first for the cliff.

  A scream lodged in her throat, she threw herself at him, catching hold of his shirt, then flung out her left hand towar
d the base of the test cell. There wasn’t much left of it, perhaps a foot sticking above the ground, but enough for her purposes. Years of training kicked in and she magnetized her hand toward the steel pillar, locking herself in place.

  Cameron’s shirt made an ominous ripping sound under her hand, but her grip on him was strong enough to jerk him to an almost stop. He twisted enough to lock his hand around her wrist, keeping himself from falling.

  His blue eyes were wide in his face, breath coming out in pants, like hers was. Noriko was sure that her heart beat fast enough to go right out of her chest.

  Lars and Lizzie were there in seconds, grabbing hold of both of them and dragging them well clear of the cliff. Noriko did not let go of Cameron until she was absolutely sure that he would not go over.

  A cold sweat trickled down her spine, and it felt like she had aged about five years from the terror of that moment. “I thought we agreed,” she panted out, voice squeaking, “that we wouldn’t be doing any more trust exercises?”

  Cameron had to be just as scared as she was, just as rattled, but he actually had the audacity to laugh. Grabbing her up in a hug, he just held on to her, almost rocking. “Last one. Promise, Spidey.”

  “You break that promise, you will owe me a year’s worth of birthday cakes. We clear on this, Powers?”

  “Crystal, partner.” His voice sounded calm enough, but she had her ear next to his heart, and it was thumping hard enough to be a drum in a metal band.

  There was the crunch of gravel as someone sprinted their direction. Their captain skidded to a halt on his knees and grabbed them both by the shoulders, nearly shaking them. “What happened? Who’s hurt?”

  “We’re good, Cap,” Cameron promised, still not letting go of her.

  “Speak for yourself,” Lars muttered, looking a little white around the eyes. “I aged about ten years.”

  It was Lizzie, practical as always, that explained, “Cameron had a grip on something in the hillside that was giving him trouble. He called to Lars for help, but just as he did, it finally came free. It was so sudden that it jerked him right off his feet. If not for Noriko, he would have gone head first over the cliff.”

  Banderas didn’t like the sound of this one bit. “How close were you to the edge?”

  “I stayed within the two feet minimum, Cap. But it was a lot heavier than me.” Cameron’s shrug implied that physics was the evil one here, not him. “But we’re good. Only loss is my shirt.”

  Rubbing at his face, hard, Banderas muttered to himself, “When I was younger, my mother cursed me that I would have children just like me. I didn’t realize that curse carried over to subordinates.”

  Noriko actually found that amusing. “Were you that bad as a child?”

  “Worse. At least you two have come out both times unscathed.” He unbent enough to give her a fleeting smile before taking off his jacket and handing it to Cameron. “Wear this until we can get back. And take a break in the van, get something to eat. Tired, hungry people make mistakes.”

  She, for one, would not argue.

  They retreated to the van and pulled out ready-made sandwiches and drinks from the cooler. Noriko’s system still ran high on adrenaline, so she wasn’t sure if she could really eat just yet. She focused on hydrating first.

  Her phone rang. At a glance, she could tell it was her favorite pest: Haru. For once, she was relieved to have him call, as she needed a dose of normal right now. “Hello, Haru-kun. What are you looking for this time?”

  “Your Advanced Channeling textbook. It’s not on your bookshelf.”

  “That’s because I have it with me,” she drawled. She kept re-reading the chapters on channeling to machines, hoping she’d eventually get the knack for it and stop frying them.

  “Nee-chan!” he whined in that particular pitch that only young teenage boys could manage. “How am I supposed to read ahead if you have it?”

  “I’ll pray for you.”

  Cameron slid over on the bench and grabbed her Bluetooth, switching it to speaker. “Hey, Haru. Your sister was pretty cool just now.”

  “Cameron? What’d she do?”

  “She saved my life.”

  There was a startled beat of silence on the other side. Noriko struggled, in vain, to retrieve her Bluetooth. She knew from that smirk on Cameron’s face that he was enjoying her blush, and wasn’t it just like the man to use her one good deed to tease her?

  “No way.”

  “Way, man. I was heading head-first over a cliff, and she caught me and held me steady until help could pull me back up. It was freakin’ cool.”

  Alright, fine, two could play this game. “What he’s forgetting to mention is that he saved me last time. I was returning the favor.”

  “Half-saved,” Cameron denied, eyes crinkling up in the corners.

  “What happened last time?” Haru demanded, attention completely diverted.

  Cameron plucked the phone out of her hand and shooed her toward her sandwich. He had a grand time re-telling the tale of how broken slabs of concrete had nearly crushed them. Noriko dutifully ate and watched him. Just when had these two people, who had never met in real life, gotten to the point where they enjoyed conversing with each other so much? Haru tended to be a little on the shy side with complete strangers. Was this some magic of Cameron’s, that he could charm anyone into talking to him?

  Eventually she managed to wrest the phone back so that Cameron could eat, and answered some of the questions Haru had so that he no longer lamented about her taking her own textbook. By that time, their break was likely long over, and after re-applying sunscreen, they went back to work.

  It might have been slow progress but it was still progress. Most of the hillside was cleaned up, except one section near the 1A test stand. Everything near the Block House was cleaned up so that they could actually see what was left of the building. There were pathways carved through some of the debris strewn about.

  Before the team loaded up for the ride home, Noriko jogged over to Frank Goudie and asked, “No luck, sir?”

  “No, and I don’t think there will be.” Goudie had a contemplative look in his eyes that suggested he was thinking more than he was willing to say out loud. “I have a hunch that this really was sabotage, Noriko, but not in the usual way. Now that I’ve gone over this area twice, I see the overall pattern. After thirty years on the job, I can read it well enough. But I don’t think it was done in the usual way.” Locking eyes with her, he said softly, “I already told your captain this, but tomorrow, half of you should stay and do that legwork I asked for earlier. I think our answers are going to come from there, not here.”

  After what happened today, Noriko had a feeling on who would be assigned desk work for the near future. “We’ll comb through it carefully.”

  “Good, thank you. Good night.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Walking home that night, she got a call from Teddy, something of a rare moment. Teddy was one of those minimalists that spoke when necessary. He was completely charming when he wanted to be, but normally didn’t feel the need to exert himself. Sam always joked that Teddy was in stealth mode most of the time. As his twin, she would know.

  Beyond curious, maybe even a little alarmed, Noriko punched accept. “Hello?”

  “Hey.” Teddy’s tenor was calm and unhurried so whatever reason he called for it was not emergency related. “What was that text about you sent us?”

  After Noriko had wrestled her phone back from Cameron, she had sent a brief text to people that she had earned her hazard pay today. She hadn’t elaborated, as it wasn’t the sort of story that one could tell through a text message. “Well, my partner nearly took a nosedive over the side of a cliff today.”

  “Wait, wait, let me put you on speaker. Sam and Tye’re with me, they’ll want to hear this.”

  As it saved her from having to repeat it later, Noriko waited three seconds and after getting a reassurance that everyone could hear her, told the story. Ther
e was a part of her that felt she didn’t do the event justice, but how could she describe the terror of watching someone nearly get fatally injured in front of her eyes?

  Tye made a keening noise as if her heart was trying to come out her throat. “Nuh-uh. Nope, nope, nope tell me you’re joking.”

  “Wish I was. It was terrifying,” Noriko responded, and for a moment her heart skipped a beat as she relived that moment. “I’m so glad my reflexes kicked in as fast as they did, otherwise I’d be short a partner right about now.”

  “I bet he’s even more glad than you are,” Teddy opined.

  “Obviously,” Sam agreed, a touch sarcastically. “But you’re both okay?”

  “Both of us are fine. Only casualty was Cameron’s shirt.”

  “I think she sounds a little shaken,” Tye declared. “Noriko, why don’t you come over to my apartment? Dinner’s almost ready, you’ll be able to eat and chill, and I think you need to chill.”

  “Dinner sounds great,” she responded honestly. “I’ll be there in five.”

  Not having to cook was always a bonus, but Noriko hoped that maybe the other three could unravel the questions swirling in her head as well. Her terror today, was it just because a person nearly died in front of her eyes?

  Or had she in fact become more attached to her partner than she realized?

  19th Merlin

  Noriko plopped into her desk at the station with a certain sense of inevitability. “I knew he’d give it to us.”

  Cameron thumped into his own chair with a half-formed pout on his face. “I feel like I’ve been grounded.”

  That was because they had been. The grown up version of it, at least. “I think it’s more a precaution,” she responded. Only secretly was she relieved to work inside instead of outside. Yesterday she had still mildly burned despite all of her precautions. A second day of full exposure would not have helped her. “I mean, we did almost get hurt twice.”

  “And we saved ourselves twice. That should count for something.”

  In a tone she normally used on her brothers, she levelled a Look at him and said, “Want some cheese with that whine?”